


I asked for the earth; I received earth

by fatal



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M, Post-Break Up, late love letter, winged obsessive prequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:55:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26880070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fatal/pseuds/fatal
Summary: I promise you my word.
Relationships: Hirugami Sachirou/Hoshiumi Kourai
Comments: 41
Kudos: 191





	I asked for the earth; I received earth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [daedalust](https://archiveofourown.org/users/daedalust/gifts).



> [we should shut that window we both left open now](https://open.spotify.com/track/40JcDamq9FGDQw1qVY1u2v?si=JPJpydslSFSGcWAGLUkyoQ)

_Made of earth and heavy stone. Heavy stone and no window. No foothold for miles._

Sachirou,

  
Sometimes I still think about—the tiny one bedroom suite we moved into in your second year of college. No mattress for the first month, no bed frame for the first year. No warmth or softness in our sleep, ever, except for what we found in each other. I miss that apartment, sometimes. Sometimes I think I might miss it more than I miss you, or separate from you, but I’m trying for honesty. Just as you tried with me. 

I knew that suite was the one the moment the landlord walked us in. Because sunlight flew in through the window and turned all that hardwood into something else. Sun’s floor. Bright air. It was August. In the two years we lived there, that window was never as magical as it was in that month, on that day. I wandered in and suddenly I was bathed in sky. 

I was so happy. Oh, it wasn’t even high up. Just the second floor of an old building with only two floors to begin with. Nothing so new to see past glass and summer grime, just slanted sidewalk, another building, a bus stop. But I thought about—thought about how the view out the window would look in that month’s evenings, when it’s 9 pm but everything’s still golden. A year, two year’s worth of sunsets flashed by my eyes. A futurity of sunsets. 

You didn’t really enter the room with me. You lingered at the edge of the apartment, watching me. Your full attention always felt so perilous—but there was so much love in your eyes. And the sunlight reached you, too. The space was small enough for it to reach you. We signed the lease the day of the showing.

You looked beautiful, but you always do. I couldn’t wait to see your face beside the window in the evenings. All that gold reflected off your skin, bare to me only. Your most naked face. You have a hard time with nakedness, but I thought, silhouetted by that window, I could be an exception. I don’t mean your body. I know this about you, I understand, even if you never found the words to tell me.

Afternoon sun glinted off your eyes, which I thought, with me, would lose all their sadness. You still wore your sad eyes, the first time you kissed me. I’d promised myself, by the second kiss, that you’d never wear them around me again. Maybe that was my first mistake.

It’s funny, though. We don’t—we didn’t spend so much time by that window in the evenings, together, looking out. You were always out late studying. Maybe I’d spent too many evenings out practicing, practicing, practicing. You always told me not to apologize for that. You—understood, how important it all was for me. All is for me. You know no bout of luck propelled me here, where I am, shining now. I had to build my own wings. I had to maintain them every day, make sure they were perfect, every day. Or I’d get banned from the sky forever. You knew that better than anyone.

And yet—and yet. Now here’s something you don’t know. It was you I wanted to be with. Not the sky. There was a time when I would’ve traded all the world’s air for another moment with you. I wouldn’t care if we were wingless, crawling amongst the mud, down there with the snakes, with the bugs. Bugs can be okay. You would’ve still been pretty, even in all shade and no sunlight. All legs and no feathers. You would’ve been gorgeous. I would’ve been gorgeous beside you. I’m sure of it.

I know most of the time you feel like an apology. A person can’t be an apology. No one could breathe wearing a name like that. It’s got too much metal. A person can be a bird, maybe. Can be terrible, impossible. But we aren’t apologies. Especially not for something as—miraculous as having met each other, all those years ago. All broken-knuckled and gangly. Anxious and head-shaven. You always said you were so ugly, before. Here’s another thing you don’t know—you’ve never been ugly. Not ever. 

Still, I owe you an apology. I am trying my hardest to say sorry without giving all of myself away. It’s funny, how my own acts of selflessness can come from such selfish places. I’ve been selfish with you. I approached you and tried to fix you as if trying to fix a version of myself, if that version were as tall as you, bald as you were, as gangly and anxious and broken-knuckled. That version never existed. There’s only you, and me, and you, and me, and us, and us, and us against everything. 

It was us against everything. For as long as I can remember. For longer than I knew you. For longer than I knew you.

I hope you’re doing fine. I promise you my word. You know that’s the same as promising you all of me.

Best,

Kourai

**Author's Note:**

> title from louise glück's "ancient text"


End file.
